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How to dislodge a leader who doesn’t want to go

Ross McKibbin tries to rouse Labour’s backbenchers

Whether or not the prime minister was cheered to the rafters at the first meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party after the local/European elections I do not know. That he was allowed an easy run by MPs is agreed. Given the extent of Labour’s defeat (or non-victory if you are a loyalist), the continuing disaster in Iraq and the constant readiness of the prime minister to undermine what Labour is actually achieving at home, such passivity is both surprising and depressing. It is not wholly inexplicable, however. As many have pointed out, electoral calculation probably lies behind the reluctance of MPs to panic. Labour’s vote is still remarkably ‘efficient’. A large number of its MPs will be re-elected on an almost scandalously small fraction of the national vote. Furthermore, to the extent that the polls are not misleading, Labour remains well ahead of the Conservatives in that crucial indicator of public favour: who is best fitted to manage the economy. And the polls suggest that the benign effects of increased government spending have at last been discerned by the electorate. Although the prime minister is alleged to be no longer ‘trusted’ he is still personally popular, and the well-known Blair charm will be ladled out in gallons at the next general election. Even in the party’s awkward squad, many MPs are convinced that Blair remains their surest electoral hope. They have probably also concluded that, given the proportionate decline of the old working class, working-class abstention matters less to Labour than in the past. There is thus less fear of antagonising the heartlands and more conviction that Blair’s electoral coalition is, despite everything, intact.

Yet the inertia, the seeming complacency, so much more complacency within the PLP than outside, the touching readiness to forgive, is still surprising. Blair’s failings as leader of the Labour Party are not a secret. He is impulsive and endlessly ready to adjust Labour’s policies – whatever the moral cost – to suit the interests and prejudices of the powerful. He has also diminished the benefits to Labour of the rapid increase in state expenditure by repeatedly playing down its significance and playing up the significance of ‘reform’, ‘variety’ and ‘choice’ in the public sphere – all of which run against the dispositions of the electorate and the traditions of the Labour Party. For the Europhiles, who are a majority in the PLP, he has by endless opportunism perhaps irredeemably damaged British interests in Europe. And there is Iraq. Hitherto, the real disasters of modern British politics have been Tory disasters – Suez or the Poll Tax. Whatever their failings, Labour governments had never done anything dramatically foolish. No longer. And the folly is overwhelmingly Blair’s, to whose egoism the Labour Party has been subordinated. Although he might well believe that he will be justified in the end, he does not seem to care much about the consequences to the Labour Party if he is not. This is usually regarded as an elementary failing in a party leader.

The full text of this essay is only available to subscribers of the London Review of Books.

Letters

If, as Ross McKibbin suggests, ‘electoral calculation’ lies behind the reluctance of the Parliamentary Labour Party to act to remove Tony Blair, perhaps the MPs should do their sums again (LRB, 8 July). The PLP may be dominated by members willing to sell their souls for a ministry post, but electorates have less to lose and can be more principled. They can also act with a collective purpose that continually surprises the pundits, as we saw with the landslide against the Conservatives in 1997, and now the local election results of 10 June.

What happened in Newcastle upon Tyne, where all the seats were up for re-election, is particularly worth their attention. A Labour city if ever there was one, it is now controlled by the Liberal Democrats, who took the council with an 18-seat majority. The dominant issue in the campaign was, of course, Iraq. Whether the fury of Labour’s natural voters means they will vote Lib Dem again in the general election is uncertain, but I suggest the three Newcastle Labour MPs should not be the only Labour members in safe seats to consider as a matter of urgency a near-future outside Parliament.

Doreen Elcox
Newcastle upon Tyne

It would be a good thing if the power of the prime minister was constrained and more authority lay with back-bench MPs. To this extent I am with Ross McKibbin's proposed changes to the way the Parliamentary Labour Party works. If, however, he thinks this would somehow produce a more left-wing and anti-war Labour Party I am much more doubtful. There is an honourable group of Labour backbenchers, Jeremy Corbyn and others, who have stood out and campaigned against the war. The rest have gone along with it, even though it is clearly electorally unpopular. For that we might reasonably blame the politics of New Labour rather than the constitution of the PLP.

I was surprised to read Doreen Elcox’s suggestion that Iraq was the ‘dominant issue’ behind the Liberal Democrat victory in Newcastle’s council elections (Letters, 22 July). How does she explain the fact that across the river in Gateshead, Labour comfortably retained power? Iraq may have been a factor but local issues were more important. Gateshead Council is regarded (even by its opponents) as efficient and well run; Newcastle Council was viewed (even by some in the Labour Party) as complacent and badly run. Incidentally, it is only in recent years that Newcastle has been seen as ‘a Labour city’, as Elcox puts it. The Conservatives controlled the council during the early 1970s. That there are now no Conservative councillors in Newcastle or Gateshead is further proof that the party has become almost irrelevant in large parts of urban Britain.